Tastes change, particularly in building styles. If a structure that today looks like an eyesore can stick around long enough, it has a chance to become historic tomorrow – and even, in a new way, come back in style.

That’s the good fortune about to be enjoyed by an office building at Salisbury and Hargett streets in downtown Raleigh that dates to the early 20th century. In recent years the brick structure’s “wrinkles” were concealed under a 1970s-era facelift, one that put a one-dimensional stucco covering over the elaborate masonry. Now the stucco is off, scaffolding is on and when the reclaimed edifice emerges in a few months it will resemble the original.

Lately the building has housed various offices, but for decades it was a bank, as evidenced by a night depository slot and a vault in the basement. But even earlier it was a funeral home, precursor of today’s Brown-Wynne. So this latest renovation truly brings it from death to life.